Silencer
by shinigami no baka
Summary: Gotham and it\'s dark protector awaits the arrival of it\'s newest inhabitant
1. Introduction

Plane tickets?   
  
Check.  
  
Wallet?  
  
Check.  
  
Are you out of your mind?  
  
Yes.  
  
I sighed. What was I thinking, moving to Gotham? Home of the infamous Batman? And those other people running around in spandex? Home of blathering psychos, murderers, and all the stuff nightmares are made of.  
  
Okay, so you think I'm being very paranoid. Yes, I do know that Batman and Robin are superheroes, they reinforce law in Gotham. Beat up the bad guys, protect the innocents. Blah blah blah. You know what? I don't really care. Or may I do. One of these days, I just might need rescuing myself.  
  
Okay, now I'm just talking to myself. Creepy. Whatever.  
  
So here's the 101. Please note the sarcasm.  
  
I have a name (Ta da!). Angel Ma. I ain't no angel though. Never will be. Never will. Maybe my parents should've called me the Holy Terror instead. And I am... was...   
  
I'm 10. You must be thinking why the hell is a 10 year old is talking like I'm one of those angsting teens (which I will be, in three years. Big whoop). I'm very small for my age. It's along the borderlines of being petite.  
  
I'm half Chinese and half gwai-lo*. I have slightly wavy hair that's a deep brown colour. A sort of reddish tint to it. I usually leave it alone, tying it up so it'd be out of my way. The most striking feature about me is probably my eyes. They're a silver colour. Not grey, but a striking silver colour. Usually they'll take on some tint of their own but most of the time they stay silver. It's what startles people when they look at me. Given my heritage, I should have brown eyes. Oh well.  
  
People say I'm a bit of a charmer. I can charm my way out of trouble when I'm not busy terrorizing people. You name it, I've done it. From simple gag tricks like whoopee cushion to huge elaborate ones, like rigging showers so they'll spit out blue dye that will ensure that the unfortunate person would be blue for a whole month. That sort of thing.  
  
My parents are dead.  
  
Whoa. 180 degrees turn here.  
  
Which is why I'm flying to Gotham. Good god, I'm going to live with NORMAL people.  
  
It still stuns me. Anyway, I'll go back to my parent's dead issue thing. You see, a few weeks ago, they went to Gotham. And for the love of God, I don't know why. Why Gotham of all places? I mean, they just had this huge earthquake and everything. They're still getting it all back together.   
  
Anyway, my parents get this crazy idea that they want to live in Gotham. My parents are... were so weird. So they go, buy land and planned to build a mansion there. Talk about crazy, huh?  
  
They were driving through Gotham one day. There was a shootout. My parents were caught in the crossfire. They died at the scene. Big thing. Made the news. I was swamped with reporters. I was at Hong Kong at the time. It was where I've lived since I was born. With my Mummy and Daddy.  
  
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.  
  
My parents were private investors of sort. I didn't really know what they did but they were in partnerships with big companies like Wayne Corp. and Drake Industries. They didn't really talk about business around me. They thought it'd bored me.   
  
I'm a very intelligent child for my age. Or so I'm told. I have a high IQ, not that I'm bragging or anything. I love technology, constantly fiddling with it. I'm a good computer hacker. I'm not amateur, that's for sure.  
  
I had to go to Gotham to identify the bodies. Or at least, my auntie had to. Aunt Mimi. We were instantly flooded with reporters. It was like trying to walk through molasses, they were so thick. And annoying as mosquitoes too. Luckily, there was a nice reporter in them. His name was Clark... Clark.......... Kent? I think that's his name. He managed to get us to the morgue without any really incidents. He was nice. In a boy scout sort of way.   
  
Commissioner Gordon was there to meet us. I wasn't allowed in the morgue to identify the bodies. I mean, what person on their right mind would let a child in to see their bullet-holed parents. Not that it would've mattered, it's not like I'm going to collapse into hysterics. I've seen plenty of dead bodies. It's no biggie.  
  
I sat on a bench while I waited. In my cargo pants and black hoodie. I refused to wear a dress. I hate the smell of the morgue. It was a smell I knew absolutely too well. A man came to sit next to me. He wore an expensive Armani suit. I can tell, my Daddy wears them all the time. I didn't know who he was at first because I was concentrating on not to cry. He sat next to me and asked me whether I was all right. I muttered something. There was something haunting about this man. Old ghosts haunted him. I'm a bit of an empath. Though it wasn't hard to see that the man sitting beside me was fighting demons. A lot of them.  
  
I'm not a huggy feely person but I gave him a hug, right then and there. I felt there were old memories tugging inside of him. He was a bit stiff at first, a tad awkward from receiving a hug from a kid, I s'pose but he gradually softened up and hugged me back. I caught a flash of something.... Zorro? Gunshots? A necklace of pearls, laid broken on the cold concrete...  
  
He stayed with me until my aunt came out, tired and haggard. She came over to the bench and thanked the man who had stayed with me. She took me by the hand and together we walked to the exit. I learned later that the man was Bruce Wayne.  
  
I should explain about how I know and feel so much. You see, the Ma clan women are gifted. Magically. No, we don't pull rabbits out of hats. We're not like Zatara and Zantanna, donning the superhero suit. We're of a much darker magic sort. And no, we are not evil. We're necromancers. We deal with the dead.  
  
And right now, I'm heading straight toward the city where the dead are no strangers.   
  
And I can only think of just one word.  
  
Cool.  
  
  
  



	2. Rants

Disclaimer: I don't own ANY of the comic characters save for my own original characters.  
  
  
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Being a necromancer does not put me down automatically as someone who is oh so big and powerful. Yes, having the ability to riase the dead is undeniably cool. Okay, beyond cool. But I'm not immortal. I can die just as easily as everyone else can. You can drop a building on me, detonate a nuclear bomb in front of my face, and yes, I will die. I can raise the dead. But I just can't raise myself from the dead. It just doesn't work that way.  
  
It's one tough job. Learning to become a necromancer is HARD, take it from me. If you don't even know the basics of magic by five years of age, than you are royally, royally screwed. It's why there aren't very many necromancers hanging around. Probably another factor is that we tend to expire very early. It's what makes us so rare, which also tends to make us the bloody prize of the mage community. My Aunt Mimi is one of the rare ones. She's hitting her late twenties and she's still alive and kicking. You must wonder, hey! We're necromancers! What the hell is killing us off so quickly?   
  
The answer is this: pure power. We need a lot of energy to raise the dead. And that's just raising the dead, mind you. Which makes us like the frickin' Energizer Bunny. We just keep going and going, rolling off that power. And eventually, it raises enough notice for someone to notice it. That is a bad thing. Meaning nearly everyone is after you for just a taste for that power. I've been told that necromancer energy is like a gallon of espresso. It just makes you all majestically friggin' powerful all over. People WANT that power, no matter how little. From crime-lords to pathetic little demons. Everyone just wants a little bit of power. Alas, necromancers NEED that power. Drain off too much and you kill the necromancer. Unfortunately, this happens quite a lot, some bad-ass dude wants power, he goes and leeches it off of some poor dude. Leaving them to die. And the power? It goes to that fucking dude. And all they want? World domination...gold...money... All those things are irrelevant. I wonder when people will finally get it in their heads that we're people too. We want to live, damn it!  
  
O.k... now I'm just ranting... Anyway... getting back to how necromancing works...  
  
Necromancing doesn't necessarily take a lot of energy. Which is just re-animating a dead body. Basically, it's mindless unless you tell it what to do. One of my first lessons were to re-animate a dead chicken. It wasn't fun. I put way too much energy in it and ended up exploding the damn thing. Stupid chicken. After five more tries I finally got it down pat. It was actually quite fun once I got the hang of it. But then, my parents weren't very amused when I made the roast chicken, which was supposed to be for our dinner, dance the Hokey Pokey around the dinner table. I thought it was hilarious.  
  
Why need a necromancer? We take care of rogue resurrections. For some reason, raising the dead seems to be the 'in' thing to do. Superman does it. So automatically, everyone does it. Basically we just run around trying to make sure that nature is doing it's thing and all the dead are happily where they belong, not popping out of the ground like a freakin' weed. Ever seen a dead rotting body pop out of the ground before? It's enough to scare the senseless shit out of anyone. Take it from me. The first time I saw a bloody corpse rise out of the ground, I got scared shitless myself. But than, I was three years old. I got so scared I took a raw bolt of energy, drew it out, and fired it at the bloody thing. Whoops. Not such a good idea. I just made it even worse, the singed dark rotting smell was enough to make anyone gag. And I was only standing three feet from it. Eventually my aunt came to save my ass. But the memory will always stay with me, what with my aunt always teasing me about it.  
  
Aunt Mimi teaches me what every good little necromancer should know. Herself having been in the family business for quite some time. You heard me, family business. The whole Ma clan family women have all been necromancers. I can clearly trace my ancestor's heritage back to the Imperial family of the ancient order. The women go do their magic thing, the men just reproduce. Quite the reverse of what you'd expect. I mean, in REALLY old fashioned families the women do the reproduction thing and the men earn the dough. Not in my family. If you're born a male, you marry, start having kids till you have some girls which would carry on the family business.  
  
Not that the men don't have their own power. Every once in a while, a male will be born to the Ma clan as a prophet. I've always suspected that my daddy was one but... hard to tell. They tend to keep the whole thing shushed. Although prophecies aren't always 100% accurate though. The prophecies can show what may come. I wonder if, if my daddy was trully a prophet, than would that mean he foresaw his own death and chose to sweep it aside? The thought sends and still does, shivers down my back whenever I think about it.   
  
The women never marry. We can't. For some reason, we just don't. I think it's because of the curse. The curse to never shed a tear. We can't cry. At all. It's just not possible for us to. We can't shed a single tear for anyone we love. But that also extends to everything including crying for joy. It sucks. To cry means to lose our power. We can't do that. We're one of the few families that punch out necromancers every once in a while. And the world needs necromancers. We are here to insure that once a cycle has ended, it stays that way.  
  
As it is meant to be.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As I quietly sit in my seat looking out the plane, my thoughts roll in and out of my mind, like the tide coming in and out. When I arrive in Gotham, which will be in a few hours, it will be night there.  
  
My God... I'm going to live with NORMAL people.  
  
Okay, I mustn't hyperventilate in the plane, less I start a scene. I want to stay conspucious. Which is vital for me.  
  
Breath in and out... in and out...  
  
Perhaps I should go back to after visiting the morgue and the events that happened afterwards. My parent's bodies were than shipped back to Hong Kong in order to wait for the burial. They were buried in the lot 14 and 15. Beside each other. A hell lotta people showed up for the funeral. Which was nice. I think...  
  
Surprise surprise suprise! I never knew my parents could know SO much people. From Lex Luthor to Jack Drake. Damn, there so MUCH media hovering about too. As I lead a very sheltered life, who ever knew my parents were so damn famous? Or was it just because of all the owners of multi-million dollar businesses showing up? Fortunately, I have the gift for slipping by quite unnoticed so I didn't have much trouble. Aunt Mimi had to hire guards in order to keep my parent's funerals relatively PEACEFUL.  
  
They've sent reporters from all over. I noticed Mr. Kent and his wife, the ever infamous Duo was also there. Must be writing the article for the Daily Planet. There was also Commissioner Gordon. That struck me as a surprise. Shouldn't he be in Gotham? Anyway, I didn't speculate very much about it as I was concentrating very very hard at the time to not burst hysterically into tears.  
  
We must've been a sight to behold. Me, the poor little girl who just lost her parents. Not even shedding one tear. I was like a bloody statue for the whole day. From the funeral service to the reception afterwards. Maybe they'll write it off as shock. Fuck them all...  
  
The day afterwards was the reading of the will. I didn't really notice my surroundings, still holding everything in and hoping to god that I don't explode. It wasn't until Mr. Wayne sat beside me and patted my hand that I woke up and finally started to pay attention. You know, Mr. Wayne isn't as bad as he makes himself out to be, the spoiled playboy image and stuff. It's a bunch of baloney. Man, did I just say baloney? Okay... wonder where that came from?  
  
The will was read. I never knew how much my parents owned till now. Their estates, their business, their entire fortune was left to me to do as I please with it. They didn't get me a guardian for it. I now run everything in my parent's names.   
  
Fortunately, even though up until that point I had no idea what the hell did my parents invest in anyway, I had at least some idea of how exactly to run everything. Not to mention that Aunt Mimi will also help oversee some affairs.  
  
Damn, huh?  
  
Than the will revealed something even bigger.  
  
I'm going to go live Bruce Wayne.   
  
Only my parents can come up with something like this.  
  
So here I am now... On a plane... to Gotham... in order to live with Wayne.   
  
But I won't be staying there immediately. Since he's overseas doing some business, I will be staying with the Drakes for at least some time.  
  
Oh boy.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
" Do you really think it's wise, letting a ten-year old girl stay with you? " growled Nightwing as he shot a line out, swinging out into the night. Nightwing, otherwise known as Richard Grayson or Dick Grayson, followed his former mentor through the city. It had been relatively quiet. Nothing much had happened.  
  
Batman swung onto a building's edge, a formidable figure swarthed in darkness. His protege landed soundlessly beside him. A second later, another joined them.  
  
"Does it really matter? Her parents has assigned me as her guardian," he said in that low dangerous voice.  
  
" Perhaps. But is it wise? This is a ten-year old girl who just lost her parents! And you're leaving her in Gotham!" said Nightwing, barely containing his frustration.  
  
" I'm not leaving her alone. She''ll be at the Drakes."  
  
" Shouldn't you at least be there for her? At least give her a bloody welcome!"  
  
" I don't think it would be necessary. If she's anything like her mother, then I know she won't like it if I make a big commotion."  
  
" Big commotion? God, you're just going to be there for her, making sure she has everything she needs."  
  
" You're working yourself up into a frenzy. Would I expect hysterics next?"  
  
Robin aka Tim Drake hid a smile as he watched Nightwing tire himself out trying to argue with Batman. Or make that Bruce. Bruce Wayne, proclaimed playboy, is Batman. The most feared person dwelling in Gotham. Angel Ma, the girl Batman is the guardian of will be staying with the Drakes over the weekend. Tim wasn't looking forward to it. He had to cancel a YJ meeting because of this. His dad and Dana wanted him to show Angel around Gotham during the weekend. He didn't trust Kon-el enough to lead the meeting by himself.  
  
" I'm only arguing because I know you're going to go after the people responsible for her parents' deaths!"  
  
" Who said I was? "  
  
" I know you. I know how you think. "  
  
" Do you? Really?"  
  
Nightwing grimaced. " I've lived with you for quite some time. You went after Zucco. And left me all alone with Alfred."  
  
" But I'm not leaving her in the mansion with Alfred. She's going to stay with the Drakes."  
  
" But--"  
  
" Enough."  
  
Batman paused, a dramatic second, and than leaped off the building disappearing into the night. Nightwing sighed exasperatedly. The former Boy Wonder crouched on the ledge looking out onto the street below them.   
  
" What is he going to do with a 10-year old girl? Make her into another Batgirl?!"  
  
" Aw, c'mon Dick. We don't even know if he'll even tell her about his alter-ego. Maybe he's just going to send her off to some boarding school. "  
  
" I know what he's going to do. He's not going to rest until he find those shooters."  
  
Silence met his words. Dick turned his gaze out at Gotham. He, of course know what had happened to after his parents' death. And how Batman had hunted Zucco down. Ignoring completely that a frightened little boy was staying all alone with an English butler for company. He loved Alfred, he really did. But through a young person's eyes, it had been a terrifying ordeal. Dick will always remember the uncertianty he had felt during those first few weeks at the Wayne Manor.  
  
He will not let that happen to Angel Ma.   
  
Tim placed his hand on Dick's shoulder. He turned to his 'little brother'.   
  
" Don't worry, I'll take care of her during her first week in Gotham. You can drop by, you know. Batgirl and Azrael can take over Bludhaven in Nightwing's stead over the weekend. We'll spend some quality family time," said Tim, smiling at Dick. Dick flashed a grin.  
  
" Sorry. It's just that..."  
  
" I know."  
  
Dick grinned at Tim. " Thanks. I know that things haven't been great with you and Bruce lately. I shouldn't be dumping my own misgivings about this whole thing on you. "  
  
Tim sat on the ledge, a small smile twisting his lips." Blowing my identity to Steph? Yeah, that'll definitely drive a huge block between us. I try not to think too much about it."  
  
" He has his reasons."  
  
" Hm. C'mon, let's patrol before I have to go. Her plane lands in a few hours. I promised my dad that I'll be there."  
  
Two shadows were seen leaping into the night, very much like the figure before them, disappearing into the darkness which they called home.   



End file.
